Of Wooden Swords and Rocking Horses
by aces
Summary: Rebecca comes to live at Shillingworth Magna.


Title: Of Wooden Swords and Rocking Horses  
Author: aces  
Rating: G  
Warnings: Main characters as small children involved. Hopefully the sap doesn't overflow. Also, I'm a bit fuzzy on proper etiquette of early-Victorian child care among the elite, so if Phil should be out of the nursery and with a tutor by now, I apologize and hope he'll forgive me the insult. The MacIver herein is the father of the MacIver we've seen on the show, I've also decided.  
Notes: I was reading one of Susan M. Garrett's stories, which made me wonder what _did_ happen when Rebecca first arrived at Shillingworth Magna...

_Of Wooden Swords and Rocking Horses_

"Hello," the girl said. She was sitting demurely in one of the chairs lining the front hall, feet swinging back and forth an inch or three above the ground. She had long, neat red-gold ringlets and blue eyes and a scrape on her freckled nose. "My name's Rebecca."

"Reb-becca?" he repeated curiously, and crept closer. He and Ras had known visitors had come to call upon their father, but they hadn't seen who, and he had elected to investigate. He'd left Ras in their nursery, promising to make excuses for him if any of the servants checked in on them. They were currently in between governesses. "That's a very d-dull name."

She pursed her lips and stopped swinging her legs. "You haven't even told me _your_ name," she pointed out haughtily, and he flushed and straightened to his full height of just over four feet.

"Phileas," he said with great dignity.

She giggled. "That's a _silly_ name." He glared and started to turn away and return to the nursery. He didn't have to put up with rude people in his own home, after all.

"Wait!" Rebecca slipped off her chair and skidded in her slippers toward the boy. He thought she looked scared, and he almost held his hand out to her before he remembered himself and watched her with an aloof eye. She hurled herself to a stop directly in front of him. "Don't leave me alone, please." She bit her lip, as if regretting she'd spoken.

"W-why are you h-here?" he asked, staring at her.

Her blue eyes were quite wide. The black of her dress made their colour stand out even more. "I think I have come here to live," she responded finally, seemingly choosing each word with great care.

Phileas narrowed his eyes. "B-but that's silly," he said. "D-d-don't you have a home of y-your own? What of your p-p-parents?"

Her eyes were still quite wide, and when a tear brimmed over her cheek he got quite scared himself. He quickly slipped his hand into hers. "D-d-don't cry," he said. "P-please d-don't cry. W-would you like to meet my b-brother?"

She nodded, looking down at the floor rather than at him, and he led her out of the great hall. They crept back to the nursery, where Ras was standing with the door cracked open, peering out anxiously.

"Who is she?" Phileas's younger brother asked, gaping at the girl. She drew away from Phileas and curtsied quickly to the other boy. It had the appearance of something she'd learned by rote, after numerous lectures about how to be polite, just like one of Ras's bows. Phileas took great pride in his own bows.

"I'm Rebecca Fogg," she said.

"Really? I'm Erasmus," the younger boy said. "Phil, she must be a relation!"

"I rem-member you," Phileas blinked in surprise, the name making a connection in his dimmest memory. "I saw you when you were a b-babe." He hadn't been very interested all those years ago, though his mother had been quite excited. Rebecca looked quite different now.

"Have you come for a visit?" Ras was chattering as he led the girl into the nursery and jumped onto the rocking horse. He began rocking with an energetic vengeance. "We never get visitors!"

"Yes we d-do," Phil retorted, watching the girl as she walked about the room, examining it and its contents thoroughly.

"But they're old and boring," Ras answered, "and they never play with us." He jumped off the horse and picked up his wooden sword. He gestured with it grandly, and Rebecca watched him—or rather, watched the sword—with fascinated eyes. "Would you play with us, Rebecca?"

"Girls don't sword fight," Phileas lectured.

That earned him a swift glare from the girl, who picked up one of the other wooden swords that had been lying on the floor. She brandished it at Ras, who hadn't been expecting it. He jumped back. Phileas laughed, and his younger brother glared at him.

"You're holding it wrong," Rebecca told Ras, and that made Phileas laugh harder.

"D-d-d-don't laugh, Ph-ph-phil," Ras taunted him spitefully, and it was Phileas's turn to glare. He plucked the sword from Rebecca's hand—she squawked at him, but he paid her no mind—and immediately lunged for his brother with it. His brother, startled, still managed to parry, and they fought like fiends for a few moments until Phileas disarmed Ras.

By the time they looked up, Ras sucking his thumb and Phileas gingerly feeling his nose, Rebecca had climbed upon the rocking horse. She was rocking back and forth so furiously her hair kept flying about her face, and the skirts of her dress flew up. She slowed down when she noticed them staring.

"Are you both quite finished?" she asked. She slid off the horse and took Ras's sword from the floor where he'd dropped it when Phileas had cornered him. She held it up again, facing Phileas, her feet in their little black slippers standing in the correct position.

"En garde," she spoke carefully, and waited.

He frowned, and glanced at Ras, who maddeningly only shrugged. He turned back to the girl, and she was glaring at him, but he thought her eyes were awfully wide and too bright again.

"Are you really c-c-coming to live h-here?" he asked quietly. He caught Ras's confused look as the younger boy glanced back and forth between the pair of them.

She bit her lip, but her sword never wavered. She nodded. "I think so," she said, and her voice was rather quiet. She looked very out-of-place in her neat black dress in the midst of their crowded and messy nursery. Her bonnet was sliding down her back, and her curls were tangled.

He nodded back in understanding, and straightened. "En garde," he said, and held up his sword.

Surprise flashed across her face, and then she stared at him. When she suddenly and bewitchingly grinned at him, he flushed again, embarrassed without knowing why. Ras was getting a sulky look, sure he'd just been left out of something important and not knowing what.

He quickly cheered up when Rebecca disarmed Phileas of his wooden sword in mere moments.

* * *

"Rebecca. Rebecca! Are you in here, girl?" The nursery door swung open, and in burst a very dull-looking old man with silver hair and in proper black clothes, along with Phileas's and Ras's father. Rebecca, Phileas, and Ras quickly dropped their swords—Rebecca had refused to give hers up, and Ras had started sulking again at being left out, so they'd worked out a system of sparring with three people, trading off the third and broken sword—and whirled to face the adults.

"There you are," Sir Boniface's stern face relaxed slightly, though his brows remained formidably lowered. "I see you've already met your cousins. Thank you, Pryce," he turned to the dull-looking man and shook his hand. "I can handle matters from here."

"Very good, Sir Boniface," the other man said, glancing at the children uncertainly, and left, bowing as he closed the door behind him. The children breathed out sighs of relief, though they still waited pensively to hear what the remaining adult would have to say. Phileas was particularly anxious, knowing that as the oldest his father would hold him responsible.

Sir Boniface faced the three of them consideringly. "Our butler MacIver will show you to your room, Rebecca," he said. "A governess will be arriving within a few days for you and the boys; until then, we shall all have to muddle along as best we can." His eyes flickered to his sons. "I trust you have been behaving yourselves?"

They all three nodded quickly, not looking at each other, Phileas trying not to fidget with his shirt cuffs. Sir Boniface's face may or may not have relaxed further into a slight smile, but his eyes remained stern and sad, especially when he studied Rebecca. "Very well." There was a knock on the door before MacIver appeared, and the eldest Fogg turned away to speak with the butler.

Phileas glanced quickly at Rebecca and saw that she'd dropped her sword, and that her eyes were wide and scared again. He put his own sword down and took her hand to squeeze it. Ras, who usually caught onto things eventually, though it might take him a while, took Rebecca's hand on her other side. She looked between them both and offered them a slight, shy smile.

They all looked up as Sir Boniface left the nursery and MacIver turned to face them. He stared for a moment, then said, "I guess you'll all be going together to find Miss Rebecca's room then?"

The three cousins looked at each other, then turned as one and nodded up at the butler. Together.


End file.
